A Painting Inspired by the "Rock" Dwane Johnson

This is a painting that I did that was inspired by Dwayne Johnson, The Rock. 

I started this painting about a month ago. I wanted to do a portrait of a person who had a lot of nobility and character, a person who inspires others to be more. I also wanted to paint a face that would prove to be a challenge from an artistic point of view.

WHY THE ROCK
I chose the Rock because his story of success and overcoming adversity is so amazing. He seems to be a person who lives life to the fullest because it is hard to find a picture of him without a beautiful smile. He is wealthy financially, but it seems the true richness is something he finds within and brings with him wherever he goes.

RESOURCE IMAGE
I found a picture of him with his iconic intense eyes. It was a rare one in which he is not smiling, I prefer to do pictures without smiles because I like to look for more in a person's face and try to find their depths and complexities. This picture does have a kind of smile but not overly broad. I liked the focused look he had in the photo I chose. 

THE ROCK IS A REAL LIFE HERO
I think it is so amazing how the Rock gives back. He started a charity called the Rock Foundation. It is for children who have disabilities, The foundation seeks to enrich, enable, and empower the lives of these children. Their statement of purpose is, "We serve a variety of children ranging from infancy to twenty-two years of age. Our goal is to make every child smile." He supports a bunch of other charities.   There is more than I can list here. These are the things that make Dwane Johnson a hero. (beware of scams when donating to charities- please check them out first.) Here is a link that I think is one for donating to the DJ Rock foundation, and they have some reviews.

ABOUT HEROES
In our world today, we need heroes who we can admire and look up to. But we must never forget they are human like we are and they will fall from grace. When they do it is our turn to become the hero and give them forgiveness and support, those are the moments when we can repay them for the inspiration they were to us and become a hope for them.

Dwane Johnson is quoted as saying,

• Be humble, stay hungry, and always be the hardest worker in the room.”  
• Success isn’t overnight. It’s when every day you get a little better than the day before. It all adds up.
• One of the most important things you can accomplish is just being yourself.

CLICK HERE to see more of his quotes.

ABOUT THE ART
I wanted the picture to have a lot of colors and still be moody with a sense of passion and purpose. I built this painting up in layers of color in acrylic,. I began with a "scrumbling" technique where I smear the color all over the canvas quickly. At first, it was too dark, so I kept building up the lights. His skin tone is very rich with reds, sienna and umber colors, but I began with orange to give warmth to the image then painted the darker tones over it. The features and expression were a constant struggle for me. I want the picture to be like The Rock but not so much that others would be able to personally identify with him. I want the picture to say, "Here is an example of what you can achieve." I wanted to make the painting like The Rock but a little not like Thr Rock at the same time.

The challenges were the shaved head and the stubble beard, both were features I am not used to doing. I really wanted to get the eyes right, but I had to embellish them to make them not so dark or angry-ish. The lips are hard since he is giving a half smile that is harder than a frown or full smile because the elastic nature of the mouth is moving from the fullest shape to the thinnest shape.

I am very proud of this painting and hope it finds a home where people will be inspired by him.

The title of this painting is "CAN'T WE DO SOME GOOD TOGETHER?"

Use the PayPal button below if you want to purchase this original painting.

$500.00 It will be in a black frame. US shipping will be free, all others contact me for a quote before purchase.

You can purchase art prints of this painting at my Socety6 Store, CLICK HERE.
You can purchase a framed reproduction of this painting at my Society6 Store. CLICK HERE.
You can purchase a canvas print of this painting CLICK HERE.
You can purchase an iphone case with this image. CLICK HERE.

Thank you.

Portrait of a Young Woman With Dreadlocks

Raven, a portrait of a young woman.

Here is a sample of my portrait painting skills. I painted this in acrylic on a 16x20 stretched canvas.

This picture was taken from several photos from teen glamor magazines to create her. One image was of a woman in a group who had crazy dreadlocks hair that looked fun to paint. Another picture was a woman who had an expression of strength which seemed important to this project. Other pictures were used for colors and ideas about clothing.

The painting took a few weeks to complete. It began with an outline and rough color in sketch and then I built up the background and worked forward. The face was built up in layers that became thicker as it progressed. There are lots of colors and the darks for contrast.

I really enjoyed working on this painting since I was creating a new person out of several others. I kept wondering what would she say. I looked at the design photos and tried to get an idea of the personality of the models and wondered what they would think of the painting.

I tied to make her bold, strong, and inquiring. I say inquiring because that is a trait of intelligence that we need to celebrate.

Acrylic Portrait of a Young Woman with Dreadlocks

You can buy this as an art print at my Society 6 store. CLICK HERE.
You can buy this as a framed print at my Society6 store, CLICK HERE.
You can buy this as a canvas print at my society6 store, CLICK HERE.

My painting of Raven, a Young Woman with Dreadlocks in a frame. 

5/4/19

Acrylic Portrait of a Young Woman at 19

This is a beautiful painting of a Young Woman at 19.

It is done in acrylic on canvas board. I was aiming at a freestyle approach to try to get something dramatic. The size is 16x20. I did it mostly to relax. I used a photo to compose the picture.

The background was painted several times and the portrait itself was a process of building up layers of acrylic until it was right. At first, the hair was white but it needed color so I put in the yellows but it still needed something, but the red was not my intent however when I saw how dramatic it looked I really liked it.

I had to go over the face several times before I got it right. I am very happy with it.

The original is for sale for 500.00. use the Paypal button below. It will be in a simple black frame and ready to hang.

Basic UPS shipping will be free to the US if you are outside the USA then contact me for a shipping quote before you buy. If you want to know more you can contact me through the comments field below or the about me feature.

Acrylic Portrait of a Young Woman at 19

You can also purchase a framed print reproduction of this painting through Society6, CLICK HERE. They have several options for sizes and frames.
To purchase unframed print reproductions at Society6 CLICK HERE.

Modern style Watercolor Portrait of a Young Woman

This is the finished watercolor portrait of a young woman. I posted at another blog about the process of composing and working out the problems of this picture. You can read about the creative process here.

I was trying to make a spiritual picture where the person is emerging from another place. It is like an emergence of consciousness or soul.  There was a lot of layers and steps in laying down the color. The black is Bob Ross black gesso. I choose it since I wanted to lay down the black first as an anchor for the design and to give the foggy-ness of it some focus.

Modern Style Watercolor Portrait Of a Young Woman.

I posted at another blog about the process of composing and working out the problems of this picture. You can read about the creative process here. You will see that I have made a lot of improvements.

I have a lot of problems trying to get the photography to work for me. The whites seem to turn out grey or green or something. There is a lot of white in the picture.

I anticipate that this will look beautiful in a mat and frame. There are some art venues that I hope to show it in, however, if you are in the area I would be glad for you to see it. It will price for around $200. I think.

(c) Adron

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Thank you for visiting my blog. 
I hope you enjoy my art. 

If you want to see more just choose from the labels, or use the search box, or to visit my online art store CLICK HERE.
Adron


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Watercolor painting of man playing a saxophone

This is a little watercolor painting I did of a man playing a saxophone.

My daughter was in the marching band and the jazz bands in high school.  I always thought that musicians make a powerful pictures.  Maybe it is the intensity they demonstrate or the sense of being one with the music that makes them look so cool.  I have always wanted to paint some portraits of musicians with their instruments.

Man playing jazz saxophone, watercolor 

This painting was first drawn with pencil and then I did several washes in watercolor using progressively smaller brushes as I moved toward the details.  I really like to use the liner brush to get the fine lines but it is fun to fan it across the page and let it roll the paint sideways.

I am learning to do a light wash of my lightest values first and let it dry then go over with my next darker value and finish with the darkest values last.

It is an adventure to add color to wet color and let the two colors interact on the paper.

I kept getting the colors darker and darker.  I finally left no area truly white except for the white undershirt and even then I washed most of it lightly with watery panes grey.  I am finding that using a little panes grey to darken the values and even to muddy the picture up a little seems to have a positive effect by virtue of contrast with the more pure colors.

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Adron


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(C) Adron

Watercolor Portrait of Woman with White Hair.

Watercolor Portrait of a woman with white hair was a fun painting I did this last week.  I wanted to do something misty and ethereal which it sort of is.

I am loving the colors of blue and purple contrasting the warmer flesh tones. I did not intend to use black but the eyelashes were too pale so I bit the bullet and added black around the eyes. It seemed wrong to only have black there so I gave a little speckle of black around the side of the face to mark the border of the whitish hair and the face. I wanted to have more movement of a soft texture in the face but just lost interest in doing that after putting so much texture in the background.

I began to feel that I was overworking the picture so I decided it was done.

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Thank you for visiting my blog. 
I hope you enjoy my art. 
If you want to see more just choose from the labels or the favorites in the sidebar. 
Adron



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c) Adron

Watercolor Portrait of Bald Man, Almost Abstract

A watercolor portrait of a man is a drawing I did in watercolor to experiment with the color combinations of the face. There are many colors in the human face some are from the skin or the flesh below the skin. Some colors we see are reflected colors from the environment and some are the effects of the lighting; then the shadows add other colors.

Watercolor portrait of man

I was very happy with the results of the project. It was not a study in anatomy and a discerning viewer will note the mistakes in the proportions, (I won't list them you can look for them). I liked the way the colors worked together and in places contrasted each other. I liked the extremes of the colors it is like the very warm yellows and the very cold blues battle it out on the paper.

Abstract Watercolor Portrait

Heart of Stone

 a portrait with abstract

I was teaching a class to home school students about painting in abstract. I enjoyed some of the lesson so much that I began a series of paintings using some of the technique.  It was a surprise to me to discover just how much planing and work the abstract really turns out to be. I used pen and ink for the face and then used water color pencils to give it a few pale shadows. There is a verse of scripture in pen and ink.  The water color was done in several sessions and built up gradually. I glued crumpled tissue on in some areas and gave more layers of water color.  The theme of heart of stone turning into a heart of flesh is reinforced with the earring that cascades down from the copper one to red one. The evolution of the painting was completed when I scribbled some of the words of the verse as background to the abstract portion of the portrait.

Abstract Portrait, Heart of Stone

Heart of Stone unframed,

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Thank you for visiting my blog. 
I hope you enjoy my art. 
If you want to see more just choose from the labels or the favorites in the sidebar. 
Adron



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(c)Adron Dozat